Community gardens, food pantries head off COVID food catastrophe in St. Louis

On a crisp late summer morning, 65-year-old Army veteran Nancy Vonner walked the five blocks from her home in a North St. Louis neighborhood marked by pawn shops and boarded up homes to the St. Augustine Wellston Center, a long-time community fixture that’s part thrift shop, part food pantry.

Joined by a steady stream of clients, including a young mother who lost her warehouse job during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vonner filled a shopping cart borrowed from a major grocery store that’s no longer in the neighborhood. She stocked up on milk, meat, pasta and other essentials to keep her family fed until she received her monthly government assistance. Read more. . .